Year A, RCL
June 1, 2008
All Saints’, Bentonville
Gospel:
Jesus said. "Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell-- and great was its fall!"
Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
With this Sunday’s gospel reading in mind, the part about building one’s house on a foundation of rock and not being foolish enough to build a house on sand, I couldn’t help but pay close attention to the continuing reports of the effects of the devastating earthquake in China. Among the more than 7000 school rooms destroyed by the quake was a smallish school called (zinjohn) Xinjian in the heart of the now devastated Sichuan Province. The young bodies of several hundred of the school’s 660 students were found amid the collapsed walls of the shoddily built institution. You may have seen the striking photograph of the rubble of the school, sandwiched between a still standing office building and an intact apartment complex – both buildings more soundly constructed than the school and therefore left completely unscathed by the earthquake’s terrible power.
As reported in the New York Times, “ When the (zinjohn) Xinjian school was built in 1992, many parents worked for the Dongfeng Cement Factory. Company bosses donated 40 tons of cement. But that was not enough. ‘Everybody knew they didn’t have enough cement,’ said an older man familiar with the project. ‘So they used a lot of sand.’ “
Recently, for the first time since arriving in Bentonville almost two years ago, I’ve been thinking about church buildings. Among the first questions I’m asked when people learn that I am a church planter is, “Where are you going to put the church?” My reply is typically the same, explaining that the building is not the church and that we at All Saints’ are much more about building community than we are about putting together brick and mortar. That is certainly still true. To rush ahead and make plans to build a building, before building a congregation that has grown in both size and spiritual depth, would be the height of foolishness.
Yet, an idea has taken hold of my imagination. What if, when the time comes, we were to construct a worship space that represented to the community at large something of who we are? A place where the doors are open and welcoming and an entry way designed in a manner that conveys the sense of receptivity and inclusion that we have fostered from our beginnings. A building that hearkens back to our rich Anglican roots, a place where the sacred is conveyed through beauty. A place that echoes the psalmist’s cry to God, “Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe, but also a place whose footprint on the earth’s surface is light. A church that is a model of sensitivity to creation – using God’s gifts of wind and sun – to provide the power needed to keep the interior warm in the winter, cool in the summer and filled with light. A building designed and oriented in a way that allows it to harmonize with its physical setting, to be as one with the natural world – relying on the insights of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his Arkansas protégé Fay Jones. A building that reveals how we value tradition, but conveys a vision of the church of the future…that would be a church worth building.
But as thrilling as that prospect is, I know that we are not ready. Because to begin construction of a church building, with inadequate building materials, would be building a house on sand.
We have come a long way in a short period of time. But it is critical, at this juncture, to pay close attention to our foundation. If we are to hear the words of Jesus, and act on them, like a wise man who built his house on rock. We still have preparatory work to do.
We must ensure that All Saints’ is the kind of place where everyone who enters our doors finds an entry point. It must be foundational that every visitor is made to feel welcome. And then, we must be sure that their spiritual growth is attended to. A church with a solid foundation is a place where the spiritual wellbeing of young and old alike is nurtured, cared for, instructed, and challenged. If we build without having constructed a foundation that allows all our members to grow into their full potential as Christians, we have built a house on sand.
The engineers of Sichuan Province understood how to construct a building that would withstand an earthquake. They knew to use high quality concrete, laced with extra rebar. They were aware of the technique of tying the reinforcing bundles of iron rods together with strong wire. They knew that walls and floors and columns must be securely linked to one another and that the columns, in particular, were the key to allowing a building to sway rather than rigidly resist an earthquakes’ power.
Yet when the earth shook Sichuan Province countless schools tumbled to the ground, taking with them the thousands of young lives within.
We, those of us here who are a part of the beginnings of this creative, thrilling endeavor have a responsibility to pay close attention to the building materials making up the foundation of All Saints’. God entered into the creation process because God had so much love to offer that it couldn’t be contained. God needed to be in relationship – and we were created to satisfy that need. That need for close relationship permeates our being as well. We must ensure that our foundation is permeated by love and acceptance of one another. It is vital that prayer, our means of relating to the Divine, become a part of our being. It is essential that a sense of compassion and justice, for all God’s children, motivates us, not just to come here and listen on Sunday mornings, but to act on the words of Jesus. Above all, our church must be the kind of place that allows all who enter to live into who they are called to be. Any institution… a marriage, a corporation, a school, and especially a church, that doesn’t provide a way for it’s members to become all that God intended them to be – to realize who they really are and find their potential as human beings, is wasting lives. Wasting lives as surely as falling concrete crushed the young lives of the school children of Sichuan.
And I urge you, that if you haven’t found that entry point into All Saints’. If you haven’t yet discovered the avenue where your own spiritual growth can be fostered, then please, together, let’s create that doorway.
In speaking of this imagined house built on a solid foundation, Jesus says, “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.” My prayer today is that we will pay close attention to the kind of house we are building here, collectively. And that we will act to ensure that in the future, when our children’s children are members of All Saints’, that when the rains fall and the floods come and the winds blow and beat against this house we have built, that it will not fall, because it is founded on the rock of our salvation – an outpouring of Divine love.